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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29070006">I know, I know, I know</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunburst/pseuds/nightshade'>nightshade (sunburst)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>moon song [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SEVENTEEN (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, Ambiguous Relationships, M/M, Unrequited Love</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:21:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,233</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29070006</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunburst/pseuds/nightshade</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mingyu wondered what Wonwoo meant when he said, It’s a lot of thoughtful work. </p><p>Didn’t he think Mingyu was thoughtful? Didn’t he see Mingyu at all?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>moon song [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2207592</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>83</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Seventeen Holidays</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I know, I know, I know</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I posted a shorter version of this on <a href="https://17hols.dreamwidth.org/3914.html?thread=197706#cmt197706">dreamwidth</a> in response to this <a href="https://17hols.dreamwidth.org/3914.html?thread=24138#cmt24138">prompt</a> and now I'm in too deep. sorry 2 mingyu</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Would I trust my mouth</p><p>to resuscitate the messenger, small bird,</p><p>knowing I could kill it</p><p>with my teeth?</p><p>- Aracelis Grimay</p><p> </p><p>You couldn't have</p><p>Stuck your tongue down the throat of somebody</p><p>Who loves you more</p><p>So I will wait for the next time you want me</p><p>Like a dog with a bird at your door</p><p>- Phoebe Bridgers</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p>Someone said, Poets are people with very specific kinds of obsessions, and Mingyu thought of Wonwoo. He’d started taking the poetry class in the first place because he wanted to impress Wonwoo. </p><p>“It’s interesting you’re actually sticking to it. You’re not exactly a big reader,” Wonwoo said mildly when Mingyu tried talking to him about the class four weeks into the semester. His voice was husky and sleep-thick. Mingyu wanted to hear his own name in it. <em> Good morning, Mingyu. I liked last night. I liked you last night. </em> But Wonwoo wouldn’t look at him. “It’s a lot of thoughtful work, that kind of class.”</p><p>It was dawn. He was smoking out back on the house patio wearing Mingyu’s sweatshirt. It hung off his shoulders, neatly exposing all the littered hickeys on his pale collarbone. When Mingyu pointed out how big it was on him in a kind of joking tone that was really just an effort to hide the horrible love in his voice, Wonwoo shrugged and took another drag of his Marlboro Red. </p><p>“It’s so that the smell won’t get on my shirt,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s Monday. I have work soon. Remember?”</p><p>“Oh.” He imagined Wonwoo behind the campus bookstore counter flipping through Jeanette Winterson, swimming in the dumb frat sweatshirt and smelling like smoke. Without his habitual turtleneck the marks of Mingyu’s teeth would be pink and shiny on his throat. Fresh wounds. Mingyu closed his eyes because he was dizzy all of a sudden. “Right. That’s good, then.”</p><p>He could feel Wonwoo watching him. “I’m going as soon as I finish this.”</p><p>“You don’t have to. I made breakfast, aren’t you— aren’t you hungry?”</p><p>He opened his eyes just to check. </p><p>“I didn’t ask you to make me breakfast,” Wonwoo said, sounding tired. </p><p>He looked at Mingyu, steady for a few seconds. Then he turned his face up toward the pale pink sky, toward the crescent of almost-translucent silver moon, a wisp of smoke winding its way around his mussed curls. Funny how the moon still stuck around into the morning sometimes. </p><p>“Okay,” Mingyu said. “That’s okay.”</p><p>Wonwoo was so out of place here on the trashed shitty patio of Mingyu’s frat. Both of them knew it. But still Mingyu wanted to run his fingers through his hair and tuck each strand back into place. Wanted to have Wonwoo look at him like he did sometimes when he was really drunk, like he could only ever be honest with himself when he could forget it later. </p><p>It wasn’t like Mingyu ever asked for much. It wasn’t like he needed much. He realized he was cold without his sweatshirt and he wrapped his arms around himself, feeling goosebumps prickling to life.</p><p>Wonwoo sighed and dropped the cigarette, stubbed it out with his heel. He was wearing Mingyu’s flip-flops. He went inside, his eyes fixed on his destination like if he really stopped and looked into Mingyu’s face something would crumble inside of him.</p><p>Mingyu followed and stood awkwardly in the doorway of his own bedroom feeling very unneeded, watching Wonwoo take the sweatshirt off and fold it neatly. When he bent over to put it on the bed, a slice of anemic morning light ran down the long fingernail scratches on his back. Mingyu almost wanted to apologize for them. About how obvious it was, how obvious he always was about Wonwoo.</p><p>Wonwoo picked his black turtleneck off the ground and pulled it on, his hair going staticky when he pulled his head through. He had a talent for making every movement deliberate even if he felt unsure. That was what felt so tricky about him. He was good at obfuscating. </p><p>He laced his oxfords up quickly, his long slender fingers practiced. Those fingers had been inside Mingyu’s mouth four hours ago. They’d disassembled him in a new way, pushed him towards something that was too much, over and over, brushed his hair away from his damp eyes afterward.</p><p>It was strange last night. Wonwoo had looked him in his eyes the whole time. Mingyu hadn’t known if that apologetic tenderness was all an accident. Still couldn’t fucking figure it out.</p><p>Wonwoo stood and smoothed his hair down. Then he stopped for a few drawn-out seconds of hesitation.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he said finally, not looking at Mingyu but instead out of Mingyu’s tiny window. Day was breaking. “I think this is it.”</p><p>Mingyu took a step forward and almost reached for him but thought better of it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”</p><p>“I mean it has to be like this. I just don’t think we’re very good for each other.”</p><p>“Oh, please,” Mingyu said, knowing he sounded incredibly desperate, not really able to give a fuck about it. “No, this, I— this is fine, I can—”</p><p>Wonwoo came forward to hug Mingyu the way he never had before, never in the daylight, one hand around his waist, one hand on the back of Mingyu’s head, gently pushing Mingyu’s face into the crook of his neck like he was the taller one, the bigger one. His turtleneck was scratchy. He wasn’t warm but it was enough. </p><p>Mingyu closed his eyes and breathed, tried to make himself smaller, tried to make the moment last as long as it possibly could.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Was it me making breakfast? I didn’t mean—” </p><p>“No. It’s that you’re always going to want more, and I’m not that person, Mingyu. Someone else is. Someone else is going to be that for you and you’re going to forget about me, and that’s going to be a good thing. Promise. Good luck with your poetry class,” Wonwoo said. </p><p>Mingyu felt the rumble of his voice somewhere deep in his sternum like he was a tuning fork, trembling and trembling forever at imperceptible frequencies. He knew Wonwoo was doing the smart thing. The thing that had to be done. It still hurt like nothing had ever hurt before.</p><p>When Wonwoo was gone Mingyu stood in the kitchen and looked at the eggs he’d made. He realized he wasn’t hungry. He went back to his bedroom, feeling like a ghost. Like no one in the entire world could see him. </p><p>He sat on the bed and buried his nose into the sweatshirt Wonwoo had folded with careful precision. Just sat there for ten minutes breathing and breathing. It almost smelled like Wonwoo. But not quite. </p><p>If Wonwoo saw him like this, like a mutt curled around a dead owner’s belongings, he’d probably laugh. But maybe he’d get that occasional look he got when he was underneath Mingyu at night, a sort of soft wondering disbelief. </p><p>That was his best kind of look. It was like: I can’t believe you love me this much. I can’t believe you. Sometimes afterward, he’d let Mingyu rest his head on his chest. Sometimes he’d touch Mingyu’s hair hesitantly, say, Good boy. </p><p>Probably what hurt the most was the realization that it wasn’t made up. That thing Mingyu had thought he’d seen. Figured he could lure it in, stretch his hand out patiently, wait for it to come perch. It was real, so Wonwoo was scared of it.</p><p><br/>
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</p><p>In class, they read a poem. It was about the idea that wanting to forget how much you loved someone was like wanting to kill a bird whose only crime was nesting inside your chest. </p><p>Mingyu wondered what Wonwoo meant when he said, It’s a lot of thoughtful work. </p><p>Didn’t he think Mingyu was thoughtful? Didn’t he see Mingyu at all? Why had he kept coming to the parties? Why had he kept walking into the frat with clear distaste on his face, obviously knowing that he’d end up in Mingyu’s room, between Mingyu’s hands, a small trembling winged thing, fleeing in the morning?</p><p>By the end, Wonwoo had known. He’d seen. </p><p>It was Mingyu’s mistake, being so sincere, so bottomless. Things would’ve worked, maybe, if he’d just learned to live in the shallows.</p><p>It was raining when class ended. Mingyu walked across the quad without an umbrella, drawn to the bookstore helplessly. </p><p>He saw Wonwoo through the window in the door, leaning on the counter, the sleeves of his turtleneck pushed up to his elbows. He was making careful annotations in the margins of a crumpled paperback. </p><p>Once he tried to explain to Mingyu what it felt like to read something really beautiful when he was still a little drunk, warm excitement bleeding into his deep voice. </p><p>“I read a poem once,” he’d said, nosing against Mingyu’s throat, his hands doing something that made Mingyu even more incoherent than usual. “It went, The menace of the abyss will be subdued, I say, when I extort from you the most lovely cries and quivering whispered pleas and confused appeals of, Stop, and, More, and, Harder. Are you listening?”</p><p>Mingyu tried to say he was, and it came out all broken.</p><p>“To love, she says, for nothing,” Wonwoo said roughly, hovering above, looking into Mingyu’s eyes as he came when Wonwoo said the word <em>love</em>. Wonwoo's hands kept at it regardless until Mingyu was shaking, emptied out. Still, somehow, with more to give. “What birds, at home in their sky, have dared more?”</p><p>Someone brushed past Mingyu to open the door to the bookstore. He was back again, standing alone in the rain, his entire face burning. </p><p>The door swung closed again. He noticed his own reflection in the rain-streaked window, his wet hair half in his upset eyes, his grey hoodie soaked almost black. He felt pathetic. Like a dog waiting to be let inside.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>They had an assignment for class: Write about yourself from someone else’s point of view. </p><p>The week went by. Mingyu wrote and felt more and more stupid, because it felt like he was proving Wonwoo’s point.</p><p>He always wanted too much. He wasn’t thoughtful in the right ways. He could only apply himself to the shit that didn’t matter. He bet on losing dogs. Or maybe he was one himself. Wasn’t that kind of fucking funny?</p><p>On Friday night he got too drunk. Someone made him lie down. They left eventually and he felt his way toward the floor, sat there to ground himself, like the elevation had been making him feel like someone else. Or maybe being on the bed was dangerous now because, like everything else, it felt too close to Wonwoo.</p><p>He buried his face in his knees and tried to breathe for a few minutes. The door creaked open and he raised his head and it was Wonwoo, princely and put-together.</p><p>He looked concerned. Or maybe that was wishful thinking.</p><p>“I thought you weren’t gonna come anymore,” Mingyu croaked.</p><p>“I wanted to give you something,” Wonwoo said warily. That’s new, Mingyu wanted to say, but didn’t. He stepped inside the room, close, then closer. It looked like he was thinking about reaching down to touch Mingyu’s face, but he thought better of it. He took a book out of his bag. “It’s called A Poetry Handbook. I thought you might, uh—”</p><p>“I don’t want it.”</p><p>Wonwoo sighed. </p><p>He put the book on Mingyu’s bed and sat on the edge, something unrecognizable in his face. Mingyu tried to get up but his head was spinning too hard so he turned around and crawled forward to kneel on the floor between Wonwoo’s thighs.</p><p>He put his hands on either side of Wonwoo’s body under his shirt and looked up, his face close enough to Wonwoo’s that he could hear him breathing, just a little bit unsteady. But Wonwoo didn’t move away.</p><p>“Everything I’ve been reading reminds me of you," Mingyu said.</p><p>He was trying. Wonwoo always got mean when Mingyu tried. It was especially sad because Wonwoo wasn’t usually mean. He wasn’t, really. Really. He was insightful. He was patient. He noticed things and remembered them months later. He genuinely wanted the best for Mingyu as a person.</p><p>But he knew what he was good at. And he knew what wasn’t good for him. He stuck to it, and that was important. That was something that Mingyu needed to learn for himself.</p><p>“That’s not love,” Wonwoo said. “That’s obsession.”</p><p>“Right,” Mingyu said. </p><p>Like he’d dropped a gutted crow at Wonwoo’s doorstep, and Wonwoo shuffled at it with his shoe and said, What the hell is this?</p><p>Mingyu wanted to say, I know this isn’t right, I know you don’t want my dead little bird, I don’t know what else I can do besides give it to you. He wanted to cry. Instead he crashed forward and tried to kiss Wonwoo, and Wonwoo stayed still for one second.  Then he tilted his head back gently, up out of range. </p><p>Mingyu leaned his forehead against the flat hard pane of Wonwoo’s stomach and shook like a branch in the wind. Wonwoo reached up and stroked his hair, soft. Like he was a fearful pet someone had recently abandoned. It was very dark inside the room. Any bird would have lost its way.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>yell at me on <a href="https://twitter.com/sunsburst">twitter</a> or <a href="https://curiouscat.me/sunsburst">cc</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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